As Expected, FCC Says DSL Should Remain Fully Clothed

from the nudity-is-bad dept

As expected, the FCC ruled today that states can't force telcos to offer "naked DSL." While we had hoped that the FCC would do this as part of a more comprehensive national plan that would tell the Baby Bells to stop using their monopoly positions to force unwanted bundles on people, that's not what happened. Instead, the FCC admitted that looking into those issues was "an afterthought." While it does make sense that having 50 different state rules would be unnecessarily burdensome, you would think that the FCC would be concerned that all of the Baby Bells (minus Qwest) are basically holding up broadband deployment by forcing extra services on those who don't want them. Perhaps it's more of an issue for the FTC, rather than the FCC. What's even more disturbing, though, is that these telcos still don't seem to realize that the only thing they're doing is making cable modems look more attractive than DSL for anyone who doesn't want a local phone line, but would prefer a mobile phone or VoIP.